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News Corp Shine James Murdoch

Will the real James Murdoch please sit down? Profile of the News Corp CEO

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

February 21, 2011 | 4 min read

The New York Times has tried to profile the 'real' James Murdoch. As part of its digging it reports the News Corp Europe CEO works from a 'standing' desk.

At the weekend the New York Times, in a lengthy article centred on 38-year-old James Murdoch, wrote that he “had risen higher in the company than his older siblings, Lachlan, 39, and Elisabeth, 42, who went to work for their father and later left acrimoniously." The Times added, "The perennial speculation is whether James Murdoch, 38, will one day run the News Corporation. "

Ahead of the game, the Times went on, "With Rupert about to turn 80, the issue of succession has taken on more importance. He may never name a sole heir; his preference, executives say, is to have all three involved. He has unsuccessfully sought to bring Lachlan back to the company, but as soon as this week could announce a deal to return Elisabeth to the fold, by buying her television production company, Shine." And so it came to pass.

The American paper said James now faced his greatest test: whether he can put an end to the News of the World phone-hacking scandal — “without the company facing more troubling revelations, an embarrassingly high amount in damages or the collapse of the takeover of Sky.”

News Corporation already controls a 39 percent stake of Sky, the paper noted, and James remains its chairman after serving as C.E.O. from 2003 until 2007.

The Times said that James was trying to succeed at the company his father built, "but he is a very different character: more blunt, more bureaucratic and less able to smooth ruffled feathers. He has his father’s aggressiveness but not his tactical sense or temperance."

James declined to speak on the record for the article, said the Times, but put forward numerous people who know him well to speak on his behalf. He also asked others not to speak. Some spoke without first seeking James’s permission.

"Through nearly two dozen interviews, on and off the record, with people who have worked directly with him or are close to him personally, a portrait emerges, " said the Times.

" It suggests an aggressive, ambitious executive who has cemented his stellar reputation in the pay-television business in Asia and Europe, who at times has made assertive plays for expanding his power base within the company, who has nurtured a brand of conservative politics that often puts him at odds with the profit center that is Fox News, and who has shown an eagerness to play in the corridors of power in ways noisier than his father’s more subtle manoeuverings."

The article said James worked from a standing desk in his office in London — sitting is less efficient in getting work done . "This adds to the image of him as a tightly wound executive, as do his black belt in karate and his hobby of competitive cycling. "

News Corp Shine James Murdoch

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